Is it time to start panicking?

This morning Steve Benen at MaddowBlog cited three new polls that have the presidential race within the margin of error. Even Nate Silver’s probability model at fivethirtyeight put the election as essentially even.

Still, I remain reasonably confident that Secretary Clinton will prevail based upon Trump’s ceiling vs. hers, i.e., the number of voters who could conceivably vote for Mrs. Clinton vs. Mr. Trump.

Democrats have more reason to be concerned today than they did five weeks ago. But while the polls have closed, the larger fundamentals still favour Clinton. At this point she had a much greater opportunity to grow than he does.

Interestingly, Rothenberger was writing as the polls tightened several days ago before Clinton took a small lead which she then lost in today’s polls, but the point is the same.

The truth is the truth, though, no matter what some may say, and Benen gets the last word.

On the day of the first debate . . . the presidential race is effectively a dead heat. For all the easy assumptions — so many have argued, “The United States just isn’t the kind of country that would elect a racist television personality to be president” — there’s no denying the unavoidable fact that Donald J. Trump has a decent chance of winning the 2016 election.